Carrara

kar-ra'ra, a town of Italy situated on a small stream of the Apennines midway from Leghorn to Genoa. It is about ten miles from the sea. It is noted chiefly for its quarries, now over 2,000 years old. Carrara marble is a pure white, fine, sugar-grained stone long celebrated in art. It is the choicest marble known. The famous sculptors of Florence, and indeed of all Europe, were wont to work at Carrara to save the expense of transporting stone. The city now maintains a school of sculpture and is a place of some culture. In addition to the pure white carrara of the sculptors, the district has unlimited cliffs of marble for building purposes. The Pantheon of Rome and many other famous buildings are of Carrara stone. Blocks of stone were formerly transported to the Mediterranean over mountain roads by means of ox teams; but in 1890 a spur railway tunneled and bridged its way up to a height of 1,500 feet above the sea level at a cost of $4,000,000, and has supplanted largely primitive methods of transportation. There are over 600 quarries giving employment to 20,000 workmen, and supporting a population of 50,000 people. See Marble; Greece; Temple